


leave all your love and your loving behind

by que_sera_sera



Series: dream smp wlw [5]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Near Future, Pining, Purple Prose, Travel, meeting up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28223628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/que_sera_sera/pseuds/que_sera_sera
Summary: Niki is lighter, in a way, knowing these things and how they affect her.(Or, Niki travels to America to meet up with Puffy and thinks about her life on the way.)
Relationships: Cara | CaptainPuffy/Niki | Nihachu
Series: dream smp wlw [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767187
Comments: 18
Kudos: 60





	leave all your love and your loving behind

**Author's Note:**

> first, please do not show this to cc's. if you are a cc who saw themselves in the tags: hi! please turn back before reading publicly.
> 
> second, this is about their personas and a theoretical - i don't want this to be the manifestation of what happens in real life. i will take this down if niki and/or puffy later express the fact that they are uncomfortable with these types of fanworks online.
> 
> this was originally to be part of a larger work, but i got uninspired and burnt out on that part of the work, so i'm just posting the part that i enjoyed writing. i hope you guys enjoy too!
> 
> thank you to anix (fensandmarshes on ao3) for beta'ing my work! i appreciate it so much.
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5pjSXmA7XVIvHQQFxGyc7z - here is the spotify playlist for this fic!

Niki glances at the clock on her bedside table.

It’s late, later than she should be up at, but she has a train ride to Munich tomorrow (well, now today) at sixteen hundred and she hasn’t packed yet. After her train ride to Munich, she’s getting on a flight to America. John F. Kennedy airport, according to her tickets online. 

And she’s going to meet up with Puffy, and they’re going to go on a road trip.

She’s excited. Of course she’s excited. She can feel the electricity zap through her from the top of her scalp to the tips of her toes; she can feel her head twirl with the thought of  _ everything _ . She’s going to  _ America _ and she’s meeting up with  _ Puffy _ . She repeats it like a mantra in her head, like it’s a prayer she will never tire of. 

Twenty two hundred. It’s twenty two hundred the day before her train ride and her flight and she still hasn’t packed yet. She’s in warm pajamas (flannel pants and an old sweatshirt from  _ Abitur _ ), so she’s not sure if she’s in the mood to get up from her bed, which is warm on its own and even cosier with the addition of comfortable attire. 

She already has an outfit picked out for tomorrow. Good shoes she’s already worn in that won’t pinch her feet, a brown leather jacket, her cropped white jumper, a long-sleeved shirt, and jeans, as well as long socks. She doesn’t know why she spent so long on her outfit for tomorrow today. There’s no one she needs to impress.

Nobody that she needs to impress, except for maybe Puffy.

She shakes the thought out of her head. It’s not necessary right now. What’s  _ necessary  _ is packing, and maybe getting some sleep. She throws her covers off of her legs and tries to convince herself to get out of her bed.

"Come on, Niki," she whispers to herself. "You need to pack so that you don’t have to worry about everything tomorrow."

She closes her eyes and prepares for the onslaught of cold that she will face once she gets out of the bed. It hits her like a shock: not a block of ice, but a surface-level shiver. 

She steps into her closet and hauls one of her smaller suitcases out. She’s going on a road trip, after all; she can’t have too much stuff. She’ll take this suitcase, and a purse for a carry-on bag on the airplane.

Niki puts on her headphones and starts her workout playlist. It’s going to be enough to get her hyped up at this hour, even if she’s not actually doing any working out. A song with an energetic beat, a loud rhythm, and a uniquely female voice shouting comes on. Niki grins. Rapping follows soon after, and Niki lets herself get into the zone of packing.

Clothes. She needs a lot of clothes. She’s going to be staying for two weeks in America, so she’s going to want a week’s worth of clothes, because they’re probably going to get a chance to do laundry at some point. Niki picks out some shirts and jeans, as well as a jacket or two and some of her comfortable clothing. She puts in sweatpants and sweatshirts for the nights. Niki doesn’t think she’ll be driving at all; after all, she barely drives in Germany as it is. She puts in a sundress and a fancy dress, as well as a pair of heels and a pair of yellow sandals that make her feel happy. 

She’s doing this to make herself happy. She’s reminding herself of that. This is something that’s good for her. It’s not going to be uncomfortable, it’s just friends.

They are vlogging some of this trip, though. Not all of it, just enough. The main attractions and stuff. Puffy and Niki are going to meet up in New York and that’s going to be the first vlog. 

("Do you want me to call you Puffy or Cara when we meet in person?" Niki had asked a week ago.

"I like both." Puffy had shrugged. "Whatever gets us less attention, I guess. Don’t really mind."

"I like calling you both," Niki had replied.

"Then call me whatever," Puffy had laughed.

_ It feels like my secret, _ Niki hadn’t said. She hadn’t said a lot of things. Maybe she should have said them. It could’ve cleared up a lot. She wasn’t, isn’t, sure how to handle dating someone "but not really." The affection felt real enough. It felt real. Was it real? Something she kept to herself at night, harbored under her quilt? Kept in a glowing orb under her comforter, where only she could see? She didn’t know. She still doesn’t know.

Niki made a thumbs up. "Got it.")

Niki makes sure that she’s packed all of the basics that she needs, including her ukelele, some stuff for Minecraft, and her filming camera batteries. Once she’s done with that, she packs her water bottle, some backup laundry things, and some of her stationery. She thinks that she’ll journal this trip and takes a new journal and opens it up. Crisp. Fresh.

_ 27/4 _

_ berlin _

_ i just finished packing. going to munich tomorrow so i can fly to america. new york. i’ll miss everyone so much, but i’m excited. _

"Oh!" she gasps, noticing a Fujifilm in the corner of her room. It can’t hurt, she reasons, and she takes a last picture of her room before her trip. It takes a few seconds to print out, but when it does, she grabs a glue tape dispenser and pastes it down in her journal of new memories. She smiles.

She sticks all of the stationery things in her purse, rather than her suitcase. Niki wants to keep everything up throughout the trip.

Niki turns off her upbeat music and turns on a podcast in Spanish instead. The lulling tones of the accents soothe her into a somewhat restful sleep.

* * *

It’s fourteen hundred the next day and Niki’s physically ready to go.

She misses her home already. Logically, she knows that she’ll be back eventually. But they say that you don’t know the true beauty of where you are until you’re leaving, and that rings true now. 

There’s a lot of beauty here in Berlin. Weeds growing in between the cracks of the sidewalks, little parks that feel like a sigh from everyone else, museums with ages-old art that can’t be anywhere else. It might not be unique, but it’s her home. 

Niki stops looking out of her window and walks over to the kitchen. 

"You know the rules, right?" she asks her roommate.

Her roommate nods. "Yeah. I’ll keep everything safe."

"You sure?" 

Her face must have been betraying her emotions, because her roommate moves to soften his own. "I wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t want me to do. You need to go have some fun. Enjoy  _ America _ . Tell me how it is."

Niki chuckles a little. "I’ll be sure to. Make sure to text me on WhatsApp or Discord, or else everything will cost a lot for one or both of us."

"Noted." Her roommate salutes back at her. "Go, go have fun. Leave." He makes hand gestures like he’s trying to sweep her out of the apartment. 

She rolls her eyes, though her mouth is still set in a smile. "You’re in such a hurry! Why, am I that much of a bother?"

"You’re going to be late," he points out and she concedes to that.

She walks out of the kitchen with her luggage in hand, before turning back and stepping towards the kitchen again. "I’m gonna miss you, you know."

"I’ll miss you too," her roommate says, "The apartment is waiting."

Niki smiles as she walks out of the apartment door.

* * *

The April air is cool around Niki. It’s not raining, so it isn’t misty, but if it was, it would be misty. 

Niki walks at a brisk pace on the sidewalks, making sure to keep everything important close to her to prevent pickpockets. She knows that she looks like a tourist now and it marks her for everyone’s suspicion. Pickpockets, other tourists, locals - she feels the pain of the other locals, though, she isn’t exactly happy when somebody with a suitcase passes through the sidewalks - so she tries to head to the station as quickly as possible. Luckily for her, her apartment is located close to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, so she doesn’t need to bother anybody too much. Except for all of the people she’s bothering right now. 

Berlin is deceptively cool around April, Niki notes. Like a storm in wait, except the storm is just dry heat. Dog days. For now, soft wind brushes her skin like a hand against her cheek, like Berlin is saying that it loves her before she goes from it.  _ I love you too. _ Another brush, telling her to be careful.  _ I will _ . A third brush telling her that it will miss her.  _ I’ll miss you too.  _ A final brush, telling her to have fun.  _ I’ll try. _

Niki exhales as she enters the train station. 

The train station is surrounded by glass and open-floor. Niki wrinkles her nose as she smells the steeped lingerings of tobacco and cigarettes in the open air. It’s intense in a way that would overpower her senses if she hadn’t lived in Berlin all her life. She pushes her suitcase in front of her as she attempts to breathe through her mouth. 

It's fifteen thirty, almost thirty minutes before her train leaves and takes her out of her town. 

Niki's visited Munich before, has never been caught by it like she is by Berlin. It's duller, in a way, made dull by a sense of unbelonging. It's not bad, just different. There's different things in museums and different train lines and even a slightly different version of German. 

But Munich has one thing that Berlin hasn't had for a few months now: flights to America. She'll endure a four hour train ride and a different city if she has to. 

("America doesn't have public transportation like you guys do," Puffy had remarked one day over voice chat when they were both tired and at the verge of falling asleep. 

"They don't?" Niki had asked incredulously. "You just drive everywhere?"

"Well, in some cities, you can get around without travelling, and Amtrak still has stuff over the country. Just not as widespread as you guys have it, I guess," Puffy had answered. 

"That's where road trip culture comes from, then?" Niki had said. 

"Yeah," Puffy had responded, "Hey, if we meet up, do you want to go on a road trip with me?"

"Sure," Niki had replied immediately. 

_ I think I'd go anywhere with you, _ Niki didn't add.  _ Yes, yes, a million times yes.  _ She didn't know how to express the warmth in her chest. She barely knew, she didn't know then and she hardly knows now. She'd stumbled blind into a patch of roses and managed to not prick herself on the thorns and isn't that a miracle? Isn't that a miracle until she crashes on the floor on her face?)

Niki goes up close to a train and snaps a picture. It’s not her train but it’s a train nonetheless, so it can go into her journal. She grabs her journal out of her purse and sticks the printed out picture to it with her glue tape dispenser. 

_ 27/4  _

_ berlin _

_ going to get on the train to munich. i’ll return soon, berlin, i’ll return soon. _

* * *

At five minutes past sixteen, everybody who is meant to be on the train is on the train. It’s going to Austria, actually, but it’s stopping at Munich on the way. 

Niki looks out of the window of the train. The skies are grey and it’s misting now, like Berlin is sad to see her go. 

_ I’m coming back _ . The rain falls a little bit harder, almost a shower, as if to ask her if she really means it.  _ I will, I will, I will, I will. _ The rain slows down a little bit into a mist once more.

She looks back to see the final glance of her city before she goes. It’s beautiful. Niki loves it. It’s  _ hers _ , even though she shares it, uniquely hers and not hers and building and crumbling and it is what she has and she’s learned to love what she has.

Niki thinks that she can learn to love other things, too.

After a while, staring out the window gets boring. She’s seen miles and miles of pretty things and not-so-pretty things and she’s not sure what to do. Maybe she could play games on her phone, but she’s too tired to focus on that and she’s too awake to fall asleep. 

Niki puts on her headphones and decides to play a podcast. She’s not sure what podcast she’ll listen to yet, just something. Something that she can think about. 

She doesn’t know what to think about. It’s weird, isn’t it? Niki’s mind will run a million miles an hour until she sets it free. The paradox of thought; the illusion of choice. It’s weird.

Niki ends up listening to music instead.

The first song that comes on her shuffle is "Memento Mori" by Crywank. She listens to the lyrics like she’s always listened to the lyrics: slow, meditative, thinking of nothing else. Niki lets herself absorb the music, the guitar, the soulful voice asking about life and purity and everything in between it and the void. It’s some form of catharsis for her.

She listens to the guitar even as it shifts to Wilbur’s song. "Your Sister Was Right" from Your City Gave Me Asthma. Niki falls asleep thinking about her soul absorbing guitar chords.

* * *

Niki wakes up as the train announces that it will stop in Munich in 15 minutes. 

She films herself on her vlog camera as the next train announcement comes by. After that, she grabs her suitcase and films herself getting off of the train. It’s going to make cute vlog material, after all.

Niki immediately cringes from the smell of the smoke. They smoke more here than in Berlin. She keeps forgetting about that. The scent of inebriating burning leaves stings her nostrils and Niki clamps her nostrils together so she doesn’t have to breathe the scent in. Acrid. The smell is acrid like a field of withered squash leaves. 

The Munich station isn't too much different from Berlin's. Small, translucent glass panes let in shards of light that indicate that it's just past sunset. Oranges and yellows and pinks and purples and shades that Niki can drown in, with only the stark red and white of helicopter lights and the barely visible moon as a backdrop. 

You can't see the stars anymore. Niki remembers sneaking out of the house at night with her mother - they'd take the old car out to a far away place and Niki would learn about the stars. Now, even that area is filled with light pollution. Humans never considered the other lights before their own. Maybe they gave the stars a little wave and stared up at them hoping that the stars would always stay. Maybe the stars would shine as a response to the waves. 

Niki steps outside of the train station where she sees waves of people come out from the entrance of the station. So many people. She looks for a taxi hailing stand so that she can get to the airport, and to her surprise, she finds one close by. 

" _ Flughafen München? _ " she asks in German.  _ Munich Airport? _

The hailer nods and immediately brings up one of the prepared taxis for her. He tells her driver her destination, and her driver offers to help with the luggage. Niki refuses and lifts her suitcase into the trunk of the car on her own, making sure to take care where she knew the fragile things were. 

Her driver, fortunately, doesn't attempt to make small talk except for asking her where she needs to go in the airport, for which she is incredibly grateful. She's not sure if she can talk any more today. Logically, she knows she has to go through Check-In and Security and Passport Control and all of those other steps, but she can't bring herself to talk too much right now. 

She has new Discord DMs. A little picture of a rat from Wilbur, a question from Fundy, and some messages from her little chat with Puffy. 

Niki answers Fundy's question and sends a heart to Wilbur to know that his rat picture was appreciated. 

Ten minutes ago, Puffy sent a message.  _ i just got in new york!! _

Niki smiles and types out a next message.  _ Ooh, how’s the hotel room? _

_ Puffy is typing…  _

Niki stares at the screen, clinging to the messages like they’re a lifeline for her, almost. She sees Puffy’s reply pop up.

_ incredibly comfy but lonely without you _

Niki feels her breath hitch in her throat. It stops over kilometres of feelings and an internet connection bringing them together. Did Puffy mean it like  _ that _ ? Could she have? Her heart beats faster, it’s still beating, but it’s bringing the pace of everything to a point just that little bit more intense. 

Still. She is still, unmoving, and she is there. Her heart is beating and the sky is getting darker but she is still in the middle of the tidal wave.

She decides to change the subject a little.  _ I’ll be on my way, in my taxi to the Munich airport rn _

_ I’ve been in Munich for about 30 min _ , she adds as a follow-up.

Puffy replies immediately.  _ i can’t wait to see you! _

Niki types a message out hesitantly.  _ Me neither. _

She deletes the period and adds an exclamation point. Then, she debates whether she should add a heart now. She isn’t sure whether Puffy would perceive something as romantic.

Niki isn’t sure whether she would care if Puffy did that.

She ends up sending the message with the heart.

* * *

"We’re here," the driver states in German. 

Niki nods and immediately gathers her stuff from where she is. The trip hasn’t taken too long. She’s still on track for making it to her flight at two.

The driver is walking and moving faster than her and has already taken her luggage out of the car. She hands him an 100 euro bill from her purse.

"Keep the change," she says in German, "Thank you so much."

The driver smiles back at her and heads back into his car, no doubt driving to the next person who just wanted to go somewhere away from here.

Niki walks to the entrance of the airport. It’s mostly made out of glass, like the two train stations that Niki went through. In the light, the glass almost seems to shimmer like a portal to a different world. 

Airports  _ are  _ like portals to different worlds, Niki supposes. Time isn’t real in them, money isn’t real. It only turns real once you leave the airport and everything’s changed. Her flight’s going to be at two, and it’s twenty one hundred right now, but Niki feels wide awake. Maybe it’s the nap on the train; maybe it’s the acute realization that she’s going to  _ America  _ and she’s this much closer to meeting up with  _ Puffy _ .

She steps inside into the check in area. All she has to do here is print out her boarding pass and give her suitcase to the airlines. The queues aren’t too long; they’re perfectly fine, actually, considering it’s late at night and the flights are cheaper.

Niki’s brain can’t focus. Even though she’s not tired, it’s still late and this is normally the time she’d take to destress and take a break from everything. Maybe this would be the final hour of streaming or something, but that would be the most thinking that she has to do. Her mind isn’t exactly racing at twenty one hundred, after all, and she’s not sure what to think about her. Inner dialogue is paused at this hour. She’ll come back after she’s actually slept for a while or something else.

Her surroundings are just screens describing and glass betraying the void of the night and the lights around it. There’s a moon out tonight, a full one actually, but it’s not visible from where she is right now. Just void, light pollution, and a slow-moving queue.

Niki shuffles forward as the queue moves up, her feet dragging on the ground as she waits and waits and waits to move just an inch more in the queue.

("I'm going to be a little bit," Niki had said. She was just mining some iron to make a hopper, nothing too much or too intense. But Puffy wanted Niki's opinion on something and even though she knew this was just a block game, she had a pull to the surface to see Puffy as soon as possible.

"Take as long as you need," Puffy had replied. 

"How long would you wait?" Niki had asked. 

"Forever, if you wanted me to," Puffy had responded somewhat breathily. 

"Forever?" Niki had echoed, unbelieving. 

"Mhm," Puffy had affirmed, "Forever and an eternity more."

Niki had the words echoing in her brain. What hadn't Puffy said to her? What was under the words, lying in wait?

Painful, burning longing, a poison river on fire, had coursed through her veins in that moment. It had stung and it had stung and it had stung and it had stung, and she had burned and burned and burned and burned, and yet it had refused to go away.

Niki had tried to contain it and push it away. And yet, it was as pointless as containing the sun. Who would contain the sun from rising? Who would contain it from setting? The sky was blue and the grass was green and Niki wanted things to be more than in Minecraft.)

She sighs, waiting for her feet to take her a few more paces, eventually to the end of the queue.

* * *

After long queues and longer random trains of thought, Niki is finally free to be held to the whims of the airport. Not really freedom, but it's better than waiting in a queue. Better than waiting in three queues in a row, actually, with only a walk and a few escalators to separate them.

She isn’t really hungry now, but she knows she’ll get hungry on the plane, so she heads to the grocery store that she saw in the airport. Surprisingly, it’s pretty much a normal grocery store. It has fresh produce, snacks, and even alcohol (though Niki knows that it’s probably illegal for her to drink it while she’s in the air heading to America, where she can’t drink). Niki grabs some bananas, a container of blueberries, and a slightly big bag of chips, as well as a Club Mate. 

Niki walks to the nearest one-person table in the airport and sits down. She takes out her vlog camera and puts her headphones around her neck so that she can put them up on her ears later.

"So guys, I’m at the Munich airport because Berlin doesn’t have that many flights to America right now," Niki says. 

It’s awkward to speak straight into a camera, like baring your soul into a void that echoes back. Especially in a public place, she thinks that she looks weird and she’s self-conscious about it.

"It’s currently twenty-three hundred or about eleven PM? I think that’s the number in twelve hour time," she adds, "And I’m just waiting for my flight because it’s in two hours. There’s a grocery store in this airport and I got some fruit and stuff from it."

Niki films herself eating some berries and drinking a bit of her Club Mate. She has a weird relationship with Club Mate. She used to think that it tasted gross, like cigarette water. But she drank it anyways because she didn’t really have a bunch of other options for caffeine sources during  _ Abitur  _ and eventually she grew to love it. She still loves it, actually. She doesn’t think that it tastes like the noxious breath of flickering tobacco, at least not anymore, but she can understand the people who don’t like it.

She turns off her camera and immediately puts on her headphones to listen to music and maybe read something while she’s at it.

Soft guitar strums again lead her into her first song, "On the Count of Three" by Big Phony. The sounds of people talking around her blur into a soft hum in the background and she looks on her phone for something to do.

_ He don’t mind if she first goes ‘cause he’d follow right behind.  _ Her flight isn’t for a few hours, so she thinks about exploring the airport, but she doesn’t know if she wants to. It’s glass. All glass, see-through, vulnerable. Twenty three hundred and everything’s closing.

_ She don’t mind if he first goes ‘cause it wouldn’t change her mind.  _ The distant bitter scent of tobacco permeates the air. She wrinkles her nose and continues browsing on her phone for something to do. There’s smoking lounges here, allowing nicotine and the dust of life to leave little tracks all over the airport.

_ They take each other’s hands to find it hard to step over the line.  _ If Niki doesn’t look too much, she can pretend there’s another chair across from her and that she’s waiting for something. If she doesn’t look too much, there’s someone else there.

_ So for the sake of going together, they go on the count of three. _ She knows who she wishes it is, but she doesn’t know if she can say it to herself.

* * *

Niki is on the airplane. She’s on the plane and she feels alive, recycled air sending little pinpricks of excitement throughout her skin. Or maybe she’s just cold.

Whatever the case, her soul threatens to jump out of her skin, the excitement being  _ too much too much too much _ . She has to really think about it, she’s going to  _ America _ and she’s going on a  _ road trip _ and she’s doing it all with  _ Puffy _ . 

Also, she has the window seat. 

She gets out a pack of gum, one she brought with her so her ears don’t pop later, and looks out of the window. The night sky has set over Munich and she can see the full moon from this view, appearing over the world like it’s watching her leave. It shines brightly, even though it knows everything. Or maybe it doesn’t  _ know  _ everything and it just sees, has been seeing for all eternity. And maybe it’s tired because it’s been seeing so much and it can only get a rest every new moon. Maybe.

Niki looks at the seatback TV and goes into the map section. A little airplane figurine over a realistic map of the world shows itself over Munich. Niki scrolls through the plane route, looking for everything the plane is going to fly over. The plane is going to fly over Paris, then after France, it swoops over the Atlantic Ocean for a long while before landing in New York. 

The plane safety video comes on as the plane roars down the runway and Niki looks at the video. She hopes that nothing goes wrong, but it’s good to be prepared just in case. Always good.

The plane lifts into the air and Niki can feel the movement in her stomach, can feel the leaps and bounds and the butterflies. She puts on her headphones and turns on one of her downloaded playlists from Spotify.

On comes "Watch Your Mouth" by the Backseat Lovers. The guitar and the singing fill her ears instead of the noises of the plane and she pops a piece of gum so she doesn’t have to deal with painful ears later on. She slouches down and looks out the window as she ascends higher and higher into the air. 

This much closer. She’s this much closer to everything she’s been waiting for since Puffy first asked that question. Puffy won’t have to wait forever anymore. She’s going to have to face Puffy in person, going to have to face everything that she’s been keeping below the surface in Germany.

Suddenly, Niki’s nervous, and the flips in her stomach don’t excite her as much as they did before. The leaps and bounds scare her a bit. But she knows that she has a handle on this. Her heart is beating faster, but it’s still beating. It’s still beating, and that’s the important part.

* * *

Niki’s plane has landed with little incident or fanfare. 

The little bit of sleep that she’s gotten during the flight has calmed the leaps and bounds in her stomach, but not by much. Now, she’s walking quickly on the moving walkway in order to get to Passport Control so that she can actually get into the country. 

Moving walkways are fun. They do what they’re designed to; bring people from Point A to Point B in an effective manner and they do it effectively, which is pretty rare. Niki actually really likes moving walkways, but she’s not sure if she actually wants them in more or less aspects of her life. 

Reminders of things to bring and not to bring and things to do and not to do echo throughout the airport on the PA system in both English and Spanish and echo through Niki’s head.  _ If you see something, say something. _

Finally, Niki reaches the passport control queue. It’s long. So long. She thinks it might take an hour at least to get through the queue. She lets out a soft groan and brings out all of the stuff she needs according to the lady shouting out directions in English and Spanish. The worst part is that she has to wait in the international queue, which is even longer than the one for the Americans. If she thought Munich was bad, this New York airport is a lot worse. 

Niki opens up her phone and connects to the airport Wi-Fi. Her phone texts her a message to say that she doesn’t have an international plan and she exhales a puff of frustration in order to try and get herself to calm down. The airport Wi-Fi tells her to sign in with her email and she puts in a spare, trying to connect to the Internet as quickly as possible. She looks up while she’s logging into the Wi-Fi. 

_ No pictures, video recording, or audio recordings are allowed at ANY time in this area, _ a fairly large sign on the wall reads. As soon as the Wi-Fi connects, messages and emails and other notifications flood in. A few from her roommate on WhatsApp, plenty of pings from Discord, and her apps attempting to notify her of the latest deals and savings. She swipes everything away and puts on her headphones so that she can connect them to her phone. 

First, she responds to her roommate on WhatsApp in German.  _ I can’t send you a selfie because it’s illegal in this part of the airport, but I’m safe and in America. _

Her roommate sends a smiley face back quickly and Niki smiles. 

She realises that her phone is still set on the time in Germany, so she quickly switches it to the time in New York. It’s eight here right now. It’s early but the sun is already up in the sky and shining brightly. 

Niki inhales deeply. She realises that the air is clean; she hadn’t realised that when she had gone into the airport from the airplane. No smoke, no tobacco. Nothing. Just air. Maybe a little bit of sweat mixed in, but no tobacco. That makes the queue a little bit more bearable. 

She clicks on Discord on her phone, ignoring all of the pings and messages from other people and focusing on getting to Puffy first.

_ I’m in, _ she sends to Puffy, like she’s in a spy movie. Hacking the mainframe and all of that good stuff. 

Actually, since apparently the American government still uses Windows Vista, it wouldn’t be too difficult to hack. She’s not planning to hack the American government, it’s just that they didn’t use a very secure form of Windows. But it doesn’t matter, since she’s not hacking the American government and doesn’t want to anytime soon. Maybe they can update to Windows 7 soon. Niki hopes that they do.

_ passport control? _ Puffy asks. 

Niki types out her message.  _ Yeah :( _

Puffy replies quickly, sending two messages in succession.  _ ugh, that sucks. hope you can get out soon! _

Niki smiles at Puffy’s message.  _ I think they said the wait time was like an hour. _

_ oh no DDD: _

_ Don’t be sad Puffy :( I’ll be here before you know it! :D _

_ ok!! <333 _

Niki looks at that last message. A heart. A heart like the one Niki panicked over sending earlier and a heart that was delayed by a few seconds. Is she thinking too much into this? Is the amount of time that she’s spent awake ruining her mind? Does Puffy know? And can she feel the same? Does Puffy feel the same pull, is the hand that Niki’s grasping for almost in reach? Is Puffy feeling the same overwhelming wave of feelings that Niki is, flailing and treading to keep herself from drowning? Does Puffy feel like she’s set on fire and like she never wants to fan out the flames? Does Puffy have that same poisonous fire running through her veins, shocking her and flipping her stomach and organs and everything inside out?

Does she?

* * *

Niki is finally through passport control. She thinks that she probably would have lost her sense of restraint had she been in there for one more moment. 

Niki walks through the airport, trying to blend in seamlessly with everybody in the halls, like she's just somebody else. Nobody of note. She doesn't think anybody else seems to recognise her, or, if they do, they don't confront her about it. She's not at her best; it's better for everybody this way. 

Baggage claim; the man scanning her and her passport and her fingerprint had told her to go to baggage claim if she had any checked-in luggage. She still needs to pick up her suitcase, so she follows the airport signs to the baggage claim. 

Niki can hear murmurs of little conversations all around her, little snippets of other people's different lives. A word, a phrase, something in a foreign language, sometimes a story. People are more interesting than they think. Even if the outline of their stories are similar, the details aren't and that's what makes everybody unique. Different. 

Niki walks to the correct carousel so that she can get her suitcase and go. She has a pretty unique ribbon and a pretty unique suitcase, so it shouldn't be too difficult to differentiate it from the others. No, the real struggle was waiting. 

_ where are you?  _ Puffy messages. 

Niki opens her Discord app and looks around for any identification. There's a door right here, that might be helpful. She sends her terminal number and the identifying sequence of her door to Puffy. 

_ I'm still waiting on my baggage, so you might have to come inside the terminal _ , Niki adds,  _ Sorry D: _

_ Puffy is typing... _

Niki watches in worry as the message pops up and goes away multiple times. 

_ thats fine! _ Puffy finally responds,  _ sry im driving _

Niki lifts her eyebrows in shock.  _ Don't text me!!! It's not safe. _

Either Puffy ignores Niki or heeds her advice, because she doesn't get a follow-up message or even a pop-up indicating that Puffy is typing. Niki's conflicted on whether that's good or bad, but for now, she'll say that's good. 

Niki sees her suitcase on the carousel and makes sure to carefully lift it off, despite its weight. It's heavy for a bag of that size, heavier than a bag of that size should be. Although she initially struggles to lift it up, she does so, and sets it on the ground. Immediately, Niki pops out the handle and starts rolling it with her. 

She debates whether to wait in front of the door or in the airport, but in the end, she decides to go outside. 

There are still people smoking outside, but it's a lot less tobacco than in Germany. Most of the smoke has a slightly unfamiliar scent that Niki is assuming is marijuana. It's not clean air, but it's different air than home. 

Home. Niki is halfway across the world away from her home; hours behind. She had been so anxious to get to America that now she's starting to feel a little bit homesick.

Niki looks at the road in front of her filling up with cars. Taxis and families wait for their passengers ro come outside. Taxis don't bother with a fanfare, Niki notices. Luggage, seating, driving, a cycle that's almost mechanical. Families and friends are a lot more emotional, hugging and arguing and introducing. They get into the car with a smile on their faces instead of a neutral look. 

"Niki!" somebody yells. Startled, she looks around for the source of the noise. 

In front of her, she sees a silver colored mom van and a familiar face. 

"P- Cara!" Niki exclaims happily. She walks and rolls her suitcase over to Puffy's car with a sense of excitement in her stroll. 

"Hey!" Puffy greets happily, "Do you need help with the luggage?"

"Nope," Niki replies, "I have it."

Puffy opens the trunk and Niki sets her suitcase inside. The trunk closes and Niki and Puffy are still just standing there. 

"Do you want a hug?" Niki asks. 

"Sure," Puffy answers. 

Niki reaches in with her arms outstretched and encompasses Puffy in a tight hug. Puffy is warm around her, Puffy is real and Niki can look at her and touch her. Puffy smells like the flowery shampoo or conditioner that she uses in her hair and she is warm and she is shorter than Niki and Puffy’s head fits in the crook between Niki’s head and her shoulder and she is a good hugger and she is real. 

"I can't believe this is happening," Niki whispers incredulously. 

"Me neither," Puffy whispers back. 

Niki reluctantly pulls away from Puffy. "You're driving us back to the hotel, right?"

"Yep!" Puffy walks behind Niki and Niki walks towards the passenger side of the car. They both get in at about the same time, and Puffy locks the car after they are in. 

"If you want to sleep," Puffy adds, "I can lock the windows so you don't open them by accident. Traffic's going to make this drive take a while anyway, so it's better to sleep first."

"That would be really nice to do that," Niki responds sincerely, "Thank you."

"No problem." Puffy locks the windows and smiles.

Niki puts her elbow on the armrest of Puffy's car and lets her face drop into it. 

She focuses on nothing in particular, nothing, especially not the way that Puffy changes the gear on the car to drive, the way Puffy's hands rest on the wheel, and the way Puffy looks out at the road when she's driving. Nothing in particular. 

**Author's Note:**

> please kudos and comment if you enjoyed! both of those really encourage me to write more.
> 
> title from "dog days are over" by florence and the machine.


End file.
